Thread: One for the Plumbers - solar hot water install.

I have acquired a complete 3 year old gas boosted solar hot water service with everything apart from the copper lines that run to and from the collector. I got it off a mate who had it removed and a small instantaneous unit installed so he could get down the side of his house with the mower - it's one of those houses on a tiny block that has no room down one side and bugger all on the other - before removing the HWS he had to take the mower through the house...

So, I'm now in possession of this - pretty good timing I think, as my builders special that was put on my house 12 years ago has started to leak and is on borrowed time. So I'll be pulling out my old builders special, and putting in a newer style builders special.... Hmmm.

Now, I just had a look at some of the newer houses down the back of the estate to see how the collectors are mounted. This now has me scratching my head as I was going to mount it on the North side of my roof, which naturally gets the most sunlight during the day. On nearly all the houses I looked at, the collector was either on the West or East side of the house - with only a couple facing North. What's the go with that?

Also, are there and special decktites required when running the copper through the roof as they would get extremely hot and I don't want them to melt or fail prematurely.

With the copper - do you just get 3/4" plain copper then use the lengths of closed cell insulation to go over it or can you buy the copper with this style of insulation already?

Thanks in advance.

I've seen some with some panels on the east or north for a morning charge and others on the west for a late afternoon charge.
In our case the panels on both houses face north and work fine.

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